Each week, GolfChannel.com takes a look back at the week in golf. Here’s what’s weighing on our writers’ minds.
On youth being served on the PGA Tour …
Xander Schauffele, 23, may have won the Tour Championship Sunday in an upset, but the fact that the final event came down to a duel of youthful talent was fitting. After Sergio Garcia’s victory at the Masters, the rest of this year’s big prizes all belonged to rising young stars. Justin Thomas (24) won the PGA Championship and the FedEx Cup, and he will be the Player of the Year. Si Woo Kim (22) won The Players, Brooks Koepka (27) won the U.S. Open and Justin Spieth (24) The Open. Forty feels old again on the PGA Tour. – Randall Mell
Tour Championship: Articles, video and photos
Final FedExCup Playoff points standings
On a still underwhelming season finale …
It always helps when the soon-to-be Player of the Year wins the season-long title, but the FedExCup could still use a little freshening up.
Move it around. Add a cup-only Monday shootout separate from the Tour Championship proper. Options abound, but the fact remains that the scene at East Lake does not achieve the sizzle that 11 months of build-up would suggest.
The schedule change that appears in the making for 2019 should help things, as the Tour’s culminating event escapes the shadow of the NFL. But there are still plenty of ways to get creative and improve a system that has now grown better at identifying the best player but still has room to grow amid the landscape of the game’s biggest tournaments. – Will Gray
On the lack of a true offseason …
Let the chorus of criticism begin as it does every year following the final putt at the Tour Championship. In 10 days, the new season will begin at the Safeway Open and that, for some, is just too much golf.
Lost in that desire to see golf embrace a true offseason are a pair of reasons why the PGA Tour will never embrace the less-is-more approach. Firstly, in the circuit’s own mission statement is the goal to create playing opportunities for every player, not just the game’s best.
There’s also a compelling business reality. If there are sponsors who are willing to write substantial checks to be a part of tournaments in the fall when the game takes an obvious back seat to football, the Tour is in no position to turn its back on that income. No business would. – Rex Hoggard
Source: Internet
